As they do on any other sunny day, people packed into the narrow cabin of the bright yellow SS Nautilus, a semi-submersible owned and operated by Catalina Adventure Tours, on Friday to experience an under-the-sea adventure off the shores of Avalon, California — but not too deep.
But this wasn't any other day. Just 24 hours earlier, after days of dramatic headlines, the U.S. Coast Guard had declared that a submersible called the Titan suffered a "catastrophic implosion" during its descent to inspect the wreck of the Titanic on June 18, killing the five people aboard. The wall-to-wall news coverage of the ultimately fruitless search threatened to cast a pall over the underwater tourism business in Southern California, although members of the industry hastened to point out the many differences between the kinds of excursions on offer in places like Avalon and the one that ended in tragedy.
The most obvious difference: the depth. The wreck of the Titanic rests more than two miles down. The Nautilus only goes eight feet below sea level, and part of the vessel stays above the surface the entire time.
